The present invention relates to a bill handling machine used in various game machines such as a slot machines, pinball machines, and card game machines, vending machines and the like (hereinafter referred to as game machines and the like) and to a bill storage unit constituting the bill handling machine.
In general, the game machine as described above uses a bill handling machine which validates the validity of a bill inserted by a user, and stores a bill validated as being legitimate. Such a type of bill handling machine is incorporated into the game machine, or into an apparatus (the-so-called sandwich apparatus installed between game machines) related to the game machine, and is comprised of a bill validator that validates the validity of a bill inserted from a bill insertion slot, and a bill storage apparatus that successively stores a bill validated as being legitimate, for example, as disclosed in JP H08-123991.
The bill validator of the bill handling machine has a bill detecting sensor that detects passage of a bill, an validating sensor to validate the validity of the bill, a driving motor that feeds the bill, a controller that controls actuators of these sensors and motor, while validating the validity of the bill based on a detection signal from the validating sensor, and the like. Further, the bill storage apparatus has a feeding mechanism provided with a driving motor, feeding roller and the like to feed the bill validated as being legitimate to a bill storage portion, a pushing mechanism that stacks bills to place in the bill storage portion, and the like.
Among bills handled by the bill handling machine, there are some bills with folds and the like. Accordingly, when such bills with folds are taken in the bill handling machine without correction, problems arise that bills cannot be stacked and stored in good shape in the bill storage portion, and/or the number of bills stored in the bill storage portion is restricted by the clearance formed between bills in the bill storage portion due to the folds.
Such problems are resolved by the pushing mechanism as disclosed in JP H08-123991, but such a pushing mechanism is complicated in structure, and has problems that its assembly is also complicated and the manufacturing cost becomes high. Further, another problem may arise that it is not possible to reserve a large capacity of the bill storage space (it is not possible to reserve a large number of bills to store) due to the existence of the pushing mechanism.
Accordingly, there are required a bill handling machine and bill storage unit enabling correction of a fold and the like of a bill in a simple structure inexpressibly with high bill storage efficiency.